Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2003 | 9:32 a.m.
It may be only a matter of time before a case of West Nile virus is confirmed in Nevada, but experts say the health risk to residents of the Las Vegas Valley remains slim.
"I'm not going to be surprised if it eventually makes it to Nevada, whether it's this summer or next," said Richard Hicks, supervisor for Clark County Vector Control.
In the past month Arizona and Utah have reported their first cases of West Nile, leaving Nevada as one of only four states that have yet to detect the mosquito-borne virus. The others are Oregon, Alaska and Hawaii.
But even if it arrives, individual Nevadans don't have to worry unduly about catching the disease. "The chances of mosquitoes picking it up and vectoring (transmitting) it to somebody are pretty low," Hicks said.
Not only that, but humans cannot transmit the disease to either mosquitoes or other humans, said Annette Rink, supervisor of the State Department of Agriculture's Animal Disease Lab in Reno.
"It is a ... disease that basically mostly circles between mosquitoes and birds," Rink said.
Nevertheless, testing is under way across the county, including at the Clark County Wetlands Park, in the expectation that the virus could arrive soon.
Hicks said the fact that Nevada has been spared thus far isn't surprising, given that its desert climate is inhospitable to most mosquito species and, until August, this summer had brought little rain to the valley.
"We just don't have a lot of the standing water that would typically breed mosquitoes," Hicks said.
But Rink said that in parts of Nevada that have both culex mosquitoes and birds from the crow family, "the requirements are there" for the disease to be sustained from year to year.
"It is going to come and, if it's here, it's going to be here to stay," Rink said. "There is a definitive host, and a vector, so once this population of birds gets infected, there is a very high likelihood that the virus will reappear every year."
She emphasized, though, that it is "highly unlikely" that West Nile will ever become as serious a threat in Nevada as it currently is in Colorado, the hardest-hit state in the country thus far with 635 human cases and six deaths so far this year.
Most people who are infected with West Nile virus do not become seriously ill, and many never develop any symptoms, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's website. Of the approximately 20 percent of those infected who develop symptoms, most suffer a few days of fever, headache, nausea and possible skin rash, while about one in 150 contracts a severe form that can be deadly.
Experts recommend that people use insect repellent when outdoors at dawn or dusk as a precaution against West Nile and other vector-borne diseases.
The disease has garnered a lot of attention after claiming more than 300 lives in the past two years, but Rink said the level of fear is out of proportion to the problem, since many more people have died of food poisoning in the same period of time.
Pat Dingle, director of the Las Vegas Zoo, said the zoo uses pesticides to combat mosquito bites and watches vigilantly for pools of standing water. Asked if he was worried, Dingle said, "I worry every day if a plane falls out of the sky, but nothing specific about West Nile."
Hicks said citizens can help prevent West Nile by reporting abandoned "green water" swimming pools to Clark County Vector Control at 455-7543.
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